There seems to be a bit of misunderstanding when it comes to using a passcode on the Apple Watch. I’ve seen more than a few comments about how inconvenient it would be to have to “enter a passcode on that tiny screen every time I want to use the watch.” Indeed, it would be inconvenient if that were a true statement; thankfully it’s not.

Yes, the Apple Watch will ask you to enter a passcode on its tiny screen, but that doesn’t happen every time you want to use the watch. The passcode is only requested in a few scenarios, such as:

Your Apple Watch reboots

You manually lock your Apple Watch

You remove your Apple Watch from your wrist

That’s pretty much it.

This means that if you put your Apple Watch on your wrist in the morning, and wear it throughout the entire day, you’ll only need to enter your passcode once.

Now consider how many times you’ve entered a passcode on your iPhone prior to Touch ID, or how many times you use Touch ID every day. Suddenly, the passcode on the Apple Watch seems like small potatoes.

Of course, you could always just omit using a passcode completely, but that would be silly. For one, you couldn’t use Apple Pay, which is one of the best features of the Apple Watch in my opinion. Secondly, it’s just not smart to walk around with a device that contains personal information without some sort of security mechanism involved.

If you do take your watch off occasionally throughout the day, there is a setting that can make your life a bit easier: Enable the Unlock with iPhone feature from your paired iPhone. This can be found in Apple Watch → My Watch → Passcode. Once you enable this switch, you will have to input your passcode once on your iPhone just to verify.

Unlock with iPhone will force your Apple Watch to unlock whenever you unlock your iPhone. This means that you can unlock your Apple Watch with Touch ID as long as you’re wearing it. If for some reason you can’t bear the thought of manually tapping the four digits required for an Apple Watch passcode, this option makes it possible to never have to input the passcode on your Apple Watch.

Do you use a passcode on your Apple Watch? Do you find it to be a hinderance to you workflow? Sound off in the comments below with your thoughts and opinions on the matter.